Contents Part One Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Part Two Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Part Three Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Part Four Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Part Five Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Part Six Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Part Seven Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Part Eight Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Part Nine Chapter 55 Glossary of Terms Cast of Characters 1637 THE PEACOCK THRONE ERIC FLINT GRIFFIN BARBER 1637: The Peacock Throne Eric Flint and Griffin Barber The assassinated Shah Jahan lies entombed beside his beloved wife in the Taj Mahal, while their progeny drag the Mughal Empire into a three-sided struggle over the succession to the Peacock Throne. The diplomatic and trade mission from the United States of Europe is openly siding with Princess Jahanara and her brother Dara Shikoh. The mission, made up largely of Americans transplanted in time by the Ring of Fire, is providing the siblings with technical assistance as they prepare to fight their rivals for the throne, Aurangzeb and Shah Shuja. Meanwhile, the Afghan adventurer Salim Gadh Yilmaz, confidant of two emperors—Shah Jahan and now his son Dara Shikoh—has been elevated to the position of general. He has great challenges to face, not the least of which is resisting the fierce and forbidden mutual attraction between himself and Princess Jahanara. As the conflict deepens, the junior members of the mission are sent east to buy opium needed by the USE’s doctors. Their guide, merchant Jadu Das, has an agenda of his own, one entrusted to him by Jahanara: seek out her great uncle, Asaf Khan, and promise whatever is needed to bring his army over to Dara’s side. The USE’s mission was sent to India in search of goods needed in Europe. But now they find that straightforward task has become enmeshed in a great civil war—for control of the Peacock Throne. THE RING OF FIRE SERIES 1632 by Eric Flint 1633 by Eric Flint & David Weber 1634: The Baltic War by Eric Flint & David Weber 1634: The Galileo Affair by Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis 1634: The Bavarian Crisis by Eric Flint & Virginia DeMarce 1634: The Ram Rebellion by Eric Flint & Virginia DeMarce et al. 1635: The Cannon Law by Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis 1635: The Dreeson Incident by Eric Flint & Virginia DeMarce 1635: The Eastern Front by Eric Flint 1635: The Papal Stakes by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon 1636: The Saxon Uprising by Eric Flint 1636: The Kremlin Games by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett 1636: The Devil’s Opera by Eric Flint & David Carrico 1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon 1636: The Viennese Waltz by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett 1636: The Cardinal Virtues by Eric Flint & Walter Hunt 1635: A Parcel of Rogues by Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis 1636: The Ottoman Onslaught by Eric Flint 1636: Mission to the Mughals by Eric Flint & Griffin Barber 1636: The Vatican Sanction by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon 1637: The Volga Rules by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett 1637: The Polish Maelstrom by Eric Flint 1636: The China Venture by Eric Flint & Iver P. Cooper 1636: The Atlantic Encounter by Eric Flint & Walter H. Hunt 1637: No Peace Beyond the Line by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon 1636: Calabar’s War by Charles E. Gannon & Robert E. Waters 1637: The Peacock Throne by Eric Flint & Griffin Barber 1635: The Tangled Web by Virginia DeMarce 1635: The Wars for the Rhine by Anette Pedersen 1636: Seas of Fortune by Iver P. Cooper 1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz by Kerryn Offord & Rick Boatright 1636: Flight of the Nightingale by David Carrico Time Spike by Eric Flint & Marilyn Kosmatka The Alexander Inheritance by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett The Macedonian Hazard by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett Grantville Gazette volumes I-V, ed. by Eric Flint Grantville Gazette VI-VII, ed. by Eric Flint & Paula Goodlett Grantville Gazette VIII, ed. by Eric Flint & Walt Boyes Ring of Fire I-IV, ed. by Eric Flint 1637: The Peacock Throne This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. Copyright © 2021 by Eric Flint and Griffin Barber All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. A Baen Books Original Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. Box 1403 Riverdale, NY 10471 www.baen.com ISBN: 978-1-9821-2535-6 eISBN: 978-1-62579-806-0 Cover art by Tom Kidd Maps by Michael Knopp First printing, May 2021 Distributed by Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Flint, Eric, author. | Barber, Griffin, author. Title: 1637 : the Peacock Throne / Eric Flint and Griffin Barber. Other titles: Peacock Throne Description: Riverdale, NY : Baen, [2021] | Series: The Ring of fire Identifiers: LCCN 2021005965 | ISBN 9781982125356 (hardcover) Subjects: GSAFD: Fantasy fiction. Classification: LCC PS3556.L548 A6186927 2021 | DDC 813/.54—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021005965 Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com) Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Electronic Version by Baen Books www.baen.com To my parents, Bill & Donna, for giving so much down the years —Griffin To Professor Stanley Wolpert, December 23, 1927–February 19, 2019. Stanley Wolpert was my professor of Indian history at UCLA and the person who introduced me to that immense and fascinating field of the human past. I’ve now written eight novels which are in one way or another set in Indian history—the six-volume Belisarius series which I co-authored with David Drake and the (so far) two volumes set in my Ring of Fire series—and any number of other works in which Indian history and culture figures to some degree. That never would or could have happened without the impact and influence that Prof. Wolpert had on me as a young man. I have been thankful to him for decades and remember him very well, even though I never saw
